A small town in Vermont is getting big energy benefits from a new photovoltaic solar system.

All of the municipal buildings, including the town hall, court house, post office and library along with the Robinson Elementary School in Starksboro, Vt., are now powered 100 percent by solar, said Robinson Elementary School principal Dan Noel.

It all started when the town’s select board chair, Susan Jefferies, went to a clean energy conference, Noel said. She heard about other communities installing solar and talked with a company about what it would take to make Starksboro solar. She started to think it might be a viable option for the little town.

Noel said he estimates there are about 2,000 residents in the Starksboro town limits. It’s a pretty tight-knit community, he said.

They had all-town meetings about the project and discussed the idea to go solar as a community before deciding to go through with it.

While it started as a project to provide the town with power, the school quickly got involved, Noel said.

“We had some land available,” he said. “And we decided to go for it.”

When the community started talking with different companies, they were surprised by how many options there were, Noel said. But they ultimately decided to contract with a local solar company, AllEarth Renewables, in nearby Williston.

“They’ve had a lot of solar and wind projects in the area,” Noel said.

The company installed 25 AllSun Trackers on a field adjacent to the Robinson School, which serves kids in kindergarten through sixth grade. The system generates about 100 kilowatts of power, enough for all of the town’s major buildings and the small school, according to a press release about the project.

“It’s up and running,” Noel said.

He said he was impressed by the online monitoring system installed at the site that allows him, community members and students to watch the system’s progress and see how much energy it’s producing and when it’s producing more or less.

In addition to providing power, it’s given students an opportunity to learn about the nuances of solar electric power.

Pictured: A series of solar modules, installed by AllEarth outside the Putney School, which is located in the southern portion of Vermont.